Featuring Gayatri Gamuz, Hidden Histories and Geographies show, and more..

NEWS

‘Rama Katha’ Miniatures Show

(A work at the show)

The National Museum, New Delhi presents a show titled, ‘Rama-Katha’. The style employed in the paintings is of miniatures. The story of Rama has been exquisitely depicted in the miniature works. The museum aims to create awareness and preserve historical objects and artifacts by such unique shows.

 The show displays some 101 masterpieces, in the Indian miniature style of paintings, also amalgamating  a few dominant themes and styles into them. Pahari paintings, Rajasthani style, Provincial Mughal style from Bundelkhand to Central Indian styles of Malwa and classical folk styles. The show features the finest of art genres and forms.

Rama’s portraits, depicting moments from hsi life, his wedding rendered in the Mandi style, Rama, Lakshmana and the golden deer in Kalighat style, Setubandhanam in Guler style, Hanuman and Dronagiri mountain in Raghogarh style can be seen at the show.

The show will be on view till the 13th October 2013.

Sama-Sam-Buddha Show

(A work at the show)

Muse Art Gallery, Hyderabad presents a solo show of artist Anisha Tandon. The show titled, ‘Sama-Sam-Buddha’ displays creations of the artist. The works on display are a combination of two varied styles of art, namely, Ikebana and painting.

The works reveal the creativity of the artist and the unique blend of two styles. She decorates the paintings with flowers and foliage, giving a very innovative look.

The theme explores the teachings and the divining presence of Buddha’s principles and incorporates them in various ways like enactments of the teachings by models.

The innovative show is on view till the 24th of August 2013.

Hidden Histories and Geographies

(A work at the show)

Apparao Galleries, Chennai along with Four Seasons Hotel, Mumbai present a show titled, ‘Hidden Histories and Geographies of the World... Narratives in Art in India’.
The show displays art works by eminent contemporary masters of the country and abroad and bring to the fore an array of exquisite works.

The participating artists are Alexis Kersey, Sakti Burman, Sudhir Pandey, Suhas Bahulkar, Uma Shankar Pathak. 

The show is being held at the Four Seasons Hotel, Mumbai and is on view till the 30th September 2013.

Port-lights of the sea deck

(A work at the show)

Clark House Initiative, Mumbai presents a commissioned permanent installation by young artist Yogesh Barve. The installation is of chequered windows, and a part of the larger series by the artist titled, ‘equality/inequality. The work highlights the conflicts encountered of attaining balance and equal arrangements of rectangular shapes.

Yogesh uses his imagination and comes up with a chess pieces moving on the board like moving rectangular shapes. Titled ‘Port-lights of the sea deck’, he imagines the structure of the Clark House windows as a brick game which an be mapped and balanced. The structures of exhaust fans etc only contribute further to the conceptual balance factor of these plains.

The installation is on view from the 16th August 2013.

(News reports by Sushma Sabnis)

FEATURE

Gayatri’s Two Worlds

A naturalised artist from Spain, based in India, Gayatri Gamuz coalesces her two identities in her art.

The eponymous show, ‘My name is Gayatri Gamuz’ opens at Kashi Art Gallery today. The show runs simultaneously at Museum Fundacion Antonio Perez in Cuenca, Spain. A one of its kind art collaboration, Kashi Art Gallery plans to do such exchanges with national museums and galleries around the world, thus widening the outreach of art to viewers, says Edgar Pinto, proprietor. In this case the parallel exhibition augments the narrative of the artist, of fusing two culturally and distantly apart worlds.

Gayatri Gamuz, the artist, belongs to both the places and countries. With a deeply personal brush stroke she ties the two cultures and countries in works that tell a story of migration, displacement and settlement. Memories make a major part of the tale, till a point where she begins to savour her new life. Her encounters on the new shores inspire differently but they also tug her back to things left behind. Sounds, animals, flora, people….become cues to a living past. Like the sepia, frayed photograph spotted in an antique bazaar here which set her down memory lane. In ‘My relatives, Myself’ she harks back to a similar picture which arrives, at her behest, by post. The painted comparative, from here and there, make one of the most sensitive interpretations of two worlds, one waning in memory and the other a stirring presence.

Married to an Indian, Inma became Gayatri after she arrived in India. But Inma was never lost to Gayatri. Despite the situational melding of two identities Gayatri and Inma co-exist comfortably. At the show the two voices surface not as contradictions but as parts of a full-bodied whole, a voice that seems supremely in control of the prevailing dualities. Inma does not confront Gayatri, nor vice-versa. The cow and bull, the former a part of her current landscape in Thiruvanamalai and the latter, a part of her Spanish days, are but a continuity of an unfolding narrative. This animal metaphor is implicit in ‘The Bull’.

Tanya Abraham, curator of the show, states “Gamuz paints freely and without pretence, she paints what she believes in and this is the merger of two worlds she knows.”

Her Indian connect comes through her work, ‘The Cow’. The artist has a close relationship with the cow, a common feature in Indian landscapes. She is able to invoke the sanctity associated with the animal. ‘My Tropical Birds’ too carries forward her relationship with her new environs. As an artist she seems to be drawn into the winged world of birds that stir her here. Her friend Gabriel, the subject of the picture, was the raison d’etre for the work informs the curator.

‘The Sky’ is a soft, scenic work with a strong message. Is the sky different in different parts of the world or is it the same sky? Metaphorical images of stroking red polka dots that embellish flamenco dancer’s dresses lend poignancy to Gayatri’s well-told tale.

The show is on till October 17.

(Report and Images courtesy The Hindu)